A little vent posting going on here, from the local “token” LGBT of the PCU. So no formatting, just a wall of text:
I’ve been within the PCU for quite some years now and on Argent Dawn for many more, and have made many friendships along the way, although a common rumour I have encountered back then and even do to this day; is this narrative that the PCU and the hundreds members within are racist, homophobic, transphobic and the likes.
Despite this being disproven by the mere existence of several of openly LGBT members along with other minorities within the guilds and community discords, many people resort to calling me and others a “Fake” or “Token gay”.
I wish to point out how incredibly hurtful this is to people not even involved in your battles and how straight up homophobic this reasoning is to begin with, eventhough it should be stupendously obvious.
I am by no means here to defend every single thing the 200+ members of the PCU has ever done or said, but when these selfproclaimed “Defenders” of minorities turn to attack and push the vunerable people they claim to fight in the name of, I am disgusted and I encourage my fellow players to call it out and use the report function when they see it.
It’s not rocket science. If you cannot call someone homophobic without resorting to homophobia yourself, you should probably take a long look in the mirror.
And finally remember to take care of eachother and be kind, even to your online rivals, we’re all here to play a video game at the end of the day.
AD would be a great place if people did this. Some do, some don’t. But I digress either way as that isn’t the topic.
I haven’t heard the term “token gay” before and it seems… Well, awful to be called that in general. Just because you’re in a clique doesn’t mean you’re this bad or that good and people should respect you as a person, as an individual, and realise that just because you’re part of X or Y doesn’t mean you’re a faker or whatever.
Why do people even… Do this?.. Like seriously, don’t they have got something better to do on a sunday, monday i don’t care what day it is , then trying to be this cool douche keyboard warrior?
People are so desperate for a cartoon villain to unsuccessfully rail against that they will assign any number of things to their internet enemies to own them online
Sadly it’s far too common everywhere. I’ve been labelled a fake gay for my work with Elfowars, or using it as a ‘cover.’ - Eh sadly, both within and outside of the LGBT community, if you don’t meet a certain list of things it’s quite easy to be ‘shunned’ out of the community. ‘Cancel’ culture is a deadly thing.
Nasty that they’ve taken the disgusting route of dismissing you as part of a particular demograph or minority because you didn’t perform as they’d decided was appropriate enough to ‘count’.
It’s not an entirely new term, related to “Tokenism” but from what searching I did (mostly on urban dictionary and other pop culture places) it’s a jibe at those who use (though not exclusively) the presence of an LGBT person or character as a means to “get off the hook” so to speak when it comes to actually supporting progressive policies.
Essentially there was a lot of it going on last month when Pride was in full swing with corporations/companies/institutions changing flags to rainbow (despite not doing in so in deeply homophobic countries like Russia, China, the Arab States) and making gestures of “Haha yes we are clearly on your side now!” Despite being clearly not the case, only wanting the so called “Pink Dollar” as it was.
Always has been.
As for context on Argent Dawn, it sounds like being associated with a group or person that has the image of (whether or not its true or otherwise) being anti-LGBT might make those who are LGBT be doubtful towards said person. Its entirely understandable, not the best though.
But considering there are actual concerted efforts across the online world to silence and denigrate LGBT persons and voices I can’t entirely blame them.
Yeah Famosium I think that I’m not specifically responsible for people not in my group (ie. the ones you linked there now)
I think it’s pretty obvious that a trawl of AD/D logs can find at least two million cringe comments from me for sure, though
Why this one, though? I think I’d stand by that even now. I think de-transitioning would be a hugely harrowing experience and I think that if someone is wrongly pushed towards that treatment is a case of malpractise since medical science can’t yet restore certain things
Maybe not a very cool way to put it and you can say it’s cringe but it is what it is and doesn’t reflect some secret homophobic belief in my soul at this time
Yeah no doubt. I was definitely a major /pol/cel at one point in my life - but so it goes that at once point you were posting the same style of post and asking after my real life address / name in /lfrp but now are presumably a way less volatile guy
Work for a couple of years in McDonalds at 20 and you’re a burger flipper for all time. It actually trolls me way more than Famo’s post
The problem is that once somebody has formed an opinion of something, either through direct exposure or through hearsay, then that is somewhat rooted in a person’s mind. You can only make one first impression. I think everyone’s guilty of this to some extent, if not in this particular case then in some other regard.
That being said, when somebody has said something blatantly offensive in the past, it can be difficult to view past that. But I think almost everyone has an ‘edgy’ phase, where they watch nothing but Family Guy and/or South Park and find it funny because it’s crass and it’s crude and it pushes the boundaries of good taste. And then you start to realise that not everyone’s down with that humour and you tone it down, and you realise there’s more to laughter than just being blatantly offensive.
Heck, perhaps there are PCU members who were homophobic who’ve now discovered their sexual or gender identity, and that homophobia was them rejecting that and lashing out. Obviously this doesn’t make it okay, or any more pleasant to’ve endured, but it’s sadly not uncommon for people in the LGBTQ+ community to start out as bigots, homophones and transphobes.
At any rate, as long as people housing anti-LGBT sentiments are removed from the general community of Argent Dawn, it’s all good with me.
).
(they don’t need to know it though, I keep that one to myself).
Always has been.